the color of crime 2016

8/19/2019 The Color of Crime 2016

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Te Color of

CrimeRace, Crime, and Justice in America

2016 Revised Edition

By Edwin S. RubensteinNew Century Foundation


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Major Findings

• The evidence suggests that if there is police racial bias in arrests it is negligible. Vic-

tim and witness surveys show that police arrest violent criminals in close proportion to therates at which criminals of different races commit violent crimes.

• There are dramatic race differences in crime rates. Asians have the lowest rates, fol-

lowed by whites, and then Hispanics. Blacks have notably high crime rates. This pattern

holds true for virtually all crime categories and for virtually all age groups.

• In 2013, a black was six times more likely than a non-black to commit murder, and 12

times more likely to murder someone of another race than to be murdered by someone of

another race.

• In 2013, of the approximately 660,000 crimes of interracial violence that involved

blacks and whites, blacks were the perpetrators 85 percent of the time. This meant a black

person was 27 times more likely to attack a white person than vice versa. A Hispanic was

eight times more likely to attack a white person than vice versa.

• In 2014 in New York City, a black was 31 times more likely than a white to be ar-

rested for murder, and a Hispanic was 12.4 times more likely. For the crime of “shoot-

ing”—dened as ring a bullet that hits someone—a black was 98.4 times more likely than

a white to be arrested, and a Hispanic was 23.6 times more likely.

• If New York City were all white, the murder rate would drop by 91 percent, the rob-bery rate by 81 percent, and the shootings rate by 97 percent.

• In an all-white Chicago, murder would decline 90 percent, rape by 81 percent, and

robbery by 90 percent.

• In 2015, a black person was 2.45 times more likely than a white person to be shot and

killed by the police. A Hispanic person was 1.21 times more likely. These gures are well

within what would be expected given race differences in crime rates and likelihood to resist

arrest.

• In 2015, police killings of blacks accounted for approximately 4 percent of homicidesof blacks. Police killings of unarmed blacks accounted for approximately 0.6 percent of ho-

micides of blacks. The overwhelming majority of black homicide victims (93 percent from

1980 to 2008) were killed by blacks.

• Both violent and non-violent crime has been declining in the United States since a

high in 1993. 2015 saw a disturbing rise in murder in major American cities that some

observers associated with “depolicing” in response to intense media and public scrutiny of

police activity.


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New Century Foundation - 1 - The Color of Crime

The Color of Crime

2016

By Edwin S. Rubenstein, M.A.

The past two years have seen unprecedented concernabout racial bias in law enforcement. Deaths of young black men at the hands of the police led to serious riot-

ing in Ferguson, Missouri, and in Baltimore. These and otherdeaths gave rise to the Black Lives Matter movement, whichhas carried out hundreds of demonstrations across the countryand even in Canada. It is widely assumed that the police and thecourts are strongly bi-

ased—certainly against blacks, and probablyagainst Hispanics.

This problem cannot be fully understood byconcentrating on a fewcases, no matter howdisturbing they mayrst appear. There werean estimated 11,300,000 arrests* in the UnitedStates in 2013, the over-whelming majority ofwhich were carried out

properly. It is only in alarger context that wecan draw conclusionsabout systemic police bias or misbehavior.This larger context ischaracterized by twofundamental factors.The rst is that differentracial groups commitcrime at strikingly dif-ferent rates, and have done so for many years. The second isthat crime, overall, has declined dramatically over the last 20years. Only after considering these points is it possible to draw

well-founded conclusions about police bias.In 2005, the New Century Foundation published “The Color of Crime,” a study of the relationship between crime,race, and ethnicity in the United States. The study was basedon published government statistics and found that blacks wereseven times more likely to commit murder and eight timesmore likely to commit robbery than people of other races,

while Asians had consistently low crime rates. Hispanics ap- peared to be committing violent crime at roughly three timesthe white race, but this conclusion was tentative becauseofcial statistics often failed to distinguish between whitesand Hispanics.

The 2005 study also found that blacks were seven timesmore likely than whites to be in prison and Hispanics were

three times more likely.

It also concluded thathigh black arrest andimprisonment rates— often cited as evidenceof a racist criminal justice system—wereexplained by the blackshare of offenders.

There has been avery important changesince 2005: Crime isdown. This is clearlyindicated by the broad-est measure of crimi-

nality in the UnitedStates, which is theannual National CrimeVictimization Survey(NCVS). In 2013,90,630 householdsand 160,040 peoplewere interviewed forthe NCVS about theirexperiences as crimevictims—whether re-

ported to the police or not. A 20-year compilation of thesurvey’s ndings indicates that both the number and rate ofviolent victimizations have declined steadily, albeit unevenly,

for at least two decades (see Figure 1).Violent crime includes rape or sexual assault, robbery,simple or aggravated assault, and domestic violence—but notmurder. Total violent victimizations in 2013 (the most recentyear for NCVS data) were about one-third their 1994 level,which was a record high; the total number declined from 17.1million in 1994 to 6.1 million in 2013.

This drop reects an even steeper decline in the rate ofviolent crime (violent crimes per 1,000 people 12 years of ageor older)—from 79.8 in 1994 to 23.2 in 2013.

A second widely cited measure of crime, the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), conrms that violent crime is in a

*Underlined words are hyperlinks. In electronic versions ofthis report, these links lead to sources. Readers of the printedversion are invited to refer to www.amren.com/the-color-of-crime/ to see the electronic versions.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/persons-arrested/persons-arrestedhttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/persons-arrested/persons-arrestedhttp://2kpcwh2r7phz1nq4jj237m22.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2005-Color-of-Crime-Report.pdfhttp://2kpcwh2r7phz1nq4jj237m22.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2005-Color-of-Crime-Report.pdfhttp://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=nvathttp://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/1tabledatadecoverviewpdf/table_1_crime_in_the_united_states_by_volume_and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants_1994-2013.xlshttp://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/1tabledatadecoverviewpdf/table_1_crime_in_the_united_states_by_volume_and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants_1994-2013.xlshttp://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/1tabledatadecoverviewpdf/table_1_crime_in_the_united_states_by_volume_and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants_1994-2013.xlshttp://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/tables/1tabledatadecoverviewpdf/table_1_crime_in_the_united_states_by_volume_and_rate_per_100000_inhabitants_1994-2013.xlshttp://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=nvathttp://2kpcwh2r7phz1nq4jj237m22.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2005-Color-of-Crime-Report.pdfhttp://2kpcwh2r7phz1nq4jj237m22.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/2005-Color-of-Crime-Report.pdfhttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/persons-arrested/persons-arrestedhttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/persons-arrested/persons-arrested


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decades-long decline (see Figure 2). The FBI’sstatistics are based on crimes reported to the police, and therefore do not include all crimes,many of which are not reported. Also, somelocal law enforcement agencies do not submitdata for the UCR. For both these reasons, thenumber of violent victimizations recorded bythe UCR—1.16 million in 2013—is a fractionof that year’s NCVS gure of 6.1 million. Thedecline in violent crimes as reported by theUCR—a 37 percent reduction from 1994 to2013—is signicantly less than the 64 percentdrop found by the NCVS over the same period.

The reason for this difference may be thatas the actual number of crimes drops, victimsare more likely to report violence to the police because it is less routine. In 1994, 40.9 percentof victims told the NCVS that they had leda police report. In 2013, the gure was 44.3 percent.

While violent crime is unquestionably downsince the last “Color of Crime” report, the share

of non-white victims is up (see Table 1).From 2002 to 2013, the number of violentvictimizations suffered by whites and blacksfell by 29.5 percent and 20.4 percent, respec-tively, and the white share of total violentvictimizations declined from 73.2 percent to62.6 percent. (In this report, “white,” “black,”and “Asian” always mean “non-Hispanic.”)

Over the same period, Hispanic victimiza-tions rose by 25.6 percent, while the “Other”category (mainly Asians) saw a 9.1 percent rise.Victimization rates for both groups declined— thought not as rapidly as for whites or blacks.The rise in victimizations was the result of a

rapid increase in the numbers of these groups.From 2002 to 2013, the Hispanic populationage 12 and over, for example, grew 48.6 per-cent while the corresponding white populationgrew by only 1.6 percent.

The “Two or more races” category did notexist in 2002 for the NCVS,1 and the highvictimization rates for this group probablyreect its small sample size: The rate more than doubled from 2012 to 2013.

While the black victimization rate exceededthat of whites and Hispanics in both 2002 and2013, the gap between the black and Hispanicrates narrowed dramatically—from 6.2 victims

per 1,000 people (36.1 – 29.9) in 2002 to just0.3 (25.1 – 24.8) in 2013. If this trend contin-ues, the Hispanic victimization rate will soonexceed the black rate.

In 2002, whites were 9 percent more likelyto be victims of a crime than Hispanics. By2013, these groups had changed places, withthe white victimization rate 10.5 percent lower

Table 1. Violent victimizations by race of victims, 2002 and 2013

2002 2013 % change

Number

White 5,432,632 3,832,527 -29.5%

Black 1,023,828 815,061 -20.4%

Hispanic 808,355 1,015,672 25.6%

Other (a) 159,736 174,309 9.1%

Two or more races (b) - 288,854 -

Total 7,424,551 6,126,423 -17.5%

Percent of total

White 73.2% 62.6% -14.5%

Black 13.8% 13.3% -3.5%

Hispanic 10.9% 16.6% 52.3%

Other (a) 2.2% 2.8% 32.2%

Two or more races (b) - 4.7% -

Total 100.0% 100.0% 0.0%

Rate per 1,000 people 12 and older

White 32.6 22.2 -31.9%Black 36.1 25.1 -30.5%

Hispanic 29.9 24.8 -17.1%

Other (a) (c) 31.0 (c) 26.8 -13.5%

Two or more races (b) - 90.3 -

Total 32.1 23.2 -27.7%

(a) Includes Asians, Native Hawaiians, other Pacic Islanders, American Indians, and Alaska Natives. (b) Category did not exist in 2002. (c)Weighted average of victimization rates for Asian/Native Hawaiian/other Pacic Islander and American Indian/Alaska Native. Data Sources:

NCVS (victimizations); Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Criminal Victimization, 2013,” Table 9 (2013 victimization rate); “Criminal Victimiza-tion, 2011,” Table 5 (2002 victimization rate); Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Criminal Victimization, 2013,” Table 5 (victims, 2013 and 2004).

http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv13.pdfhttp://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv13.pdfhttp://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv13.pdfhttp://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cv13.pdf


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than the Hispanic rate. This may be due to illegal immigrationof Hispanics. A disproportionate number of such immigrantsare young men, who are the group most likely to commitcrimes, and they may also be vulnerable as victims.

Property crimes such as burglary and motor vehicle theftalso appear to be in long-term decline, falling from an esti-mated 35.1 million cases in 1993 to 16.8 million in 2013 (seeFigure 3).

As with violent crimes, property crime victims are increas-ingly non-white (see Table 2).

The overall property crime rate has declined since thelast “Color of Crime” — from 168.2 victimizations per 1,000households in 2002 to 131.4 per 1,000 in 2013. The number of property crimes suffered by white households fell 20 percent

from 2002 to 2013, and their share of such crimes droppedfrom 70.6 percent to 62.5 percent. Both whites and blackssuffered fewer property crimes in 2013 than in 2002.

Race of OffenderIt is surprisingly difcult to arrive at a denitive picture

of the races of offenders. The National Crime VictimizationSurvey categorizes crime victims by race and Hispanic ethnic-ity, but until recently, it did not consider Hispanics a separateoffender category; it usually called them “white” or “otherrace.” Furthermore, beginning in 2009, the year the Obamaadministration took ofce, the NCVS stopped publishing infor -mation on race of offender, even though it continued to gatherthe data. In 2015, the Department of Justice nally released a

partial set of offender-race information (see page 13 below).The Uniform Crime Reports program, which is the basisof the FBI’s national tabulation of arrests, includes Hispan-ics in the “white” category. Arrest and incarceration rates byrace — to the extent they are even available — must often serveas imperfect indicators of actual offense rates by race.

As we will see in greater detail below, blacks are arrested atmuch higher rates than any other racial group.2 It is commonto argue that these high rates are the result of racial bias, andthat bias continues through every stage of criminal processing:indictment, plea bargain, trial, sentencing, parole, etc. In 2008,then-senator Barack Obama asserted that blacks and whites

“are arrested at very different rates, are convictedat very different rates, [and] receive very differ-ent sentences . . . for the same crime.” This viewis echoed by the media but is not supported byeither the scholarly literature or by governmentstatistics.

Police, in particular, are often accused of ra-cial bias, but is it really plausible that they arrest blacks they know are innocent but ignore whitecriminals? A 2008 summary of earlier researchcompared the races of offenders as identied by victims to the races of perpetrators arrested by the police and found that “the odds of arrestfor whites were 22 percent higher for robbery,13 percent higher for aggravated assault, and 9 percent higher for simple assault than they werefor blacks, whereas there were no differences forforcible rape.”

A 2015 study of American men based on the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Healthfound that controlling for IQ and lifetime recordsof violence completely accounted for racial dif-

ferences in arrest rates.Table 2. Property crime victimizations by race of

head of household, 2002 and 2013

2002 2013 % change

Number

White 13,108,165 10,491,279 -20.0%

Black 2,534,714 2,447,316 -3.4%

Hispanic 2,344,423 2,657,590 13.4%

Other (a) 567,016 1,177,902 107.7%

Total 18,554,318 16,774,087 -9.6%

Percent of total

White 70.6% 62.5% -11.5%

Black 13.7% 14.6% 6.8%

Hispanic 12.6% 15.8% 25.4%

Other (a) 3.1% 7.0% 129.8%

Total 100.0% 100.0% 0.0%

Rate per 1,000 households (b)

White 168.1 130.6 -22.3%

Black 191.0 161.9 -15.2%

Hispanic 185.3 139.4 -24.7%

Other (a) 88.7 89.6 1.0% Total 168.2 131.4 -21.9%

Note: Property crimes include household burglary, theft,and motor vehicle theft.

a. Includes households headed by Asians, Native Ha-waiians, Pacic Islanders and, in 2013, persons of two ormore races.

b. Assumes the average household of each group con-tains the same number of persons age 12 and older.

Data sources: National Crime Victimization Survey,(number); Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Criminal Victim-ization, 2013,” Appendix Table 1.

http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_criminal_justice_system.htmlhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782848/http://www.researchgate.net/publication/256079484_No_evidence_of_racial_discrimination_in_criminal_justice_processing_Results_from_the_National_Longitudinal_Study_of_Adolescent_Healthhttp://www.researchgate.net/publication/256079484_No_evidence_of_racial_discrimination_in_criminal_justice_processing_Results_from_the_National_Longitudinal_Study_of_Adolescent_Healthhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2782848/http://www.city-journal.org/2008/18_2_criminal_justice_system.html


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Fortunately, there is an excellent database that throws lightdirectly on the question of racial bias in arrests: the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). In 2013, 6,328law enforcement agencies covering approximately 29 percentof the US population reported crime to the FBI using NIBRScategories, which include races of reported offenders as wellas races of persons arrested. It is reasonable to assume that both the racial mix of this massive sample and the behavior of police ofcers are representative of the entire United States.

Unfortunately, NIBRS does not distinguish between whitesand Hispanics, which means blacks are the only racial groupfor which we have consistent information. However, blacks

are the group most frequently said to be victims of police bias,so if the police treat them fairly it is probably safe to concludethey treat other groups fairly.

Figure 4 compares the percentages of criminals that victimssay were black to the percentages of arrested suspects whowere black. If police are arresting a larger proportion of blacksthan the proportion of criminals victims say were black, itwould be evidence of bias.

For most crimes, blacks make up a larger percentage ofreported offenders than they do of those arrested. In onlyseven of the 22 NIBRS crime categories did blacks accountfor a larger share of arrests: homicides, counterfeiting/forgery,

embezzlement, fraud, stolen property offenses, drug offenses,and gambling. Interestingly, these are crimes for which theremay be no witnesses—such as embezzlement or stolen prop-erty—or are “victimless” crimes, such as drug offenses andgambling. The racial identication of suspects in these casesmay not be reliable.

In crimes that involve direct contact with victims and inwhich race of offender can therefore be clearly identied, blackarrest rates are below reported offender rates. For example,

blacks were identied as 73 percent of robbery offenders butaccounted for only 59 percent of robbery arrests.

When crimes from all categories are aggregated, black of-

fenders were 14 percent less likely than non-blacks offendersto be arrested. This suggests that police do not show anti-black bias, but make arrests that closely match the proportions atwhich people of different races commit crime.

NIBRS data come disproportionately from smaller policedepartments. In 2013, only 10 percent of the populationcovered by the system lived in cities of 250,000 and greater.What do arrest statistics show for large metropolitan areas?

New York City, for example, does not participate in NIBRS but it records the races of arrested offenders, and consistentlydistinguishes between whites and Hispanics. In 2014, 374 people were arrested for murder. Their races were as follows:

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/nibrs/2013/data-tableshttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/nibrs/2013/data-tableshttp://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/enforcement_report_year_end_2014.pdfhttp://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/enforcement_report_year_end_2014.pdfhttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/nibrs/2013/data-tableshttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/nibrs/2013/data-tables


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White: 2.9 percent

Black: 61.8 percent Hispanic: 31.8 percent Asian: 2.7 percent Other: 0.8 percentPolice take murder very seriously and investigate all cases

carefully. Press and judicial system scrutiny are high. Arrestrates for murder therefore track actual crime rates more closelythan for any other crime. Murder is probably the crime forwhich it would be most difcult for police to make “biased”arrests even if they wanted.

Given a population (page B1 of report) that was 32.8 percentwhite, 22.6 percent black, 28.9 percent Hispanic, and 13.0 percent Asian, a black was 31 times more likely than a whiteto be arrested for murder, a Hispanic was 12.4 times morelikely than a white, and an Asian was twice as likely. Thesemultiples and those for other crimes appear as graphs on thenext page. A “shooting” is discharge of a rearm in which a bullet strikes a person.

There is another way to express these disparities. If NewYork City had been all white in 2014—and the additionalwhites committed crimes at the same rates as the city’s actual

white residents—there would have been 32 murder arrestsinstead of 374, 1,844 robbery arrests instead of 10,163, and16 arrests for shootings rather than 503. These gures wouldreect reductions in these crimes of no less than 91, 81, and97 percent, respectively.

There are race differences in crime rates throughout theUnited States, but the differences are particularly sharp in NewYork and other major cities. This is probably because whiteswho live in urban centers are often relatively wealthy whereas blacks and Hispanics who live in cities are relatively poor.

In the graphs on the following page, the most serious of-fenses are displayed above, with the less serious offenses below (except for rearms violations, which are seriouscrimes). Where possible, the graphs are arranged to depict

the less serious version of the same crime directly below themore serious version. Misdemeanor sex crimes, for example,do not rise to the level of rape, and include forcible touchingand sexual misconduct. Grand larceny is theft of anything witha value greater than $1,000 and includes auto theft, while pettylarceny is theft of anything less valuable. Felonious assaultincludes attack with a deadly weapon, whereas misdemeanorassault includes pushing and spitting. Misdemeanor criminalmischief includes such crimes as cemetery desecration andcalling in false re alarms.

Almost without exception, the black/white and Hispanic/white arrest multiples are lower for the less serious crimes.Whatever else this difference may mean, it is strong evidencethat the police are not making biased arrests. Police have broad

discretion as to whether they will arrest someone for forcibletouching, shoplifting, or setting off a false re alarm.If racist police wanted to vent prejudices on non-whites,

these are the crimes for which they could most easily do so.They can walk away if someone complains he was spat on,and if they are racist they can walk away if the spitter is white but make an arrest if the spitter is black. Police cannot walkaway if someone is lying on the sidewalk bleeding from a knifewound. They must try to make an arrest, whatever the raceof the suspect. The graphs that show the lowest non-white/white arrest multiples are for crimes in which police have the

greatest arrest discretion and are therefore strong evidence that

New York City police are not biased in their arrest patterns.Like New York, Chicago keeps detailed annual statistics on

major crimes. Until 2010, it published the race of offenders, but after the election of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, it stoppedreleasing that information. The 2010 report (page 35) showsthat, like New York City, there are stark racial differences.Arrests for murder were as follows: whites—8, blacks—190,Hispanics—48, Asians—1.

The racial mix of Chicago’s population in 2010, as reportedon page 25 of the police department report (whites—31.7 percent, blacks—32.4 percent, Hispanics—28.9 percent,Asians—5.4 percent) meant that a Chicago black was 24 timesmore likely than a Chicago white to be arrested for murder,and a Hispanic was 6.7 times more likely.

Table 3 shows the multiples for the white arrest rates fora variety of crimes. Sharp racial differences appear not onlyfor crimes of violence but also for property crimes, such as burglary and auto theft. The Chicago data t the national pat-tern: Blacks have, by far, the highest arrest rates, followed byHispanics. Asians have the lowest arrest rates.

If the same calculation is done as with New York City toarrive at crime rates in a theoretical all-white Chicago, murder

would decline by 90.2 percent, rape by 80.8 percent, and robbery by 90.2 percent.

Chicago police also collected information on the sex of ar-rested criminals. Most people understand that men are moreviolent and dangerous than women, and this is reected inthe city’s arrest statistics. In 2010, men were 12.8 times morelikely than women to be arrested for murder and 19.4 timesmore likely to be arrested for robbery, compared to the black/white multiples for these crimes of 23.8 and 27.3, respectively.This means that although men in Chicago are more dangerousthan women, by comparison, blacks are even more dangerouswhen compared to whites. Similar calculations for New York

City are not possible because the NYPD does not release ar-rests by sex.Other American cities release crime statistics but not always

for the same categories. Milwaukee records races of suspectsin both homicides and “non-fatal shootings.” In 2014 (the mostrecent year available), blacks were 12 times more likely to bemurder suspects than whites, and Hispanics were four timesmore likely. For non-fatal shootings, blacks were 25 timesmore likely than whites to be suspects, and Hispanics were7.6 times more likely.

Pittsburgh releases arrest statistics, which follow the same pattern. In 2012 (the most recent year available), blacks were

Table 3. Multiples of the White Arrest RateChicago, 2010

Black Hispanic Asian

Murder 23.8 6.7 0.75

Robbery 27.3 3.9 0.69

Sexual Assault 10.4 4.9 0.23

Aggravated Assault 10.3 3.5 0.72

Burglary 10.8 3.1 0.24

Larceny 4.9 1.2 0.50

Auto Theft 19.9 4.5 0.77

Narcotics 11.5 2.5 0.38

http://www.usa.com/new-york-ny-population-and-races.htmhttps://portal.chicagopolice.org/portal/page/portal/ClearPath/News/Statistical%20Reports/Annual%20Reportshttps://portal.chicagopolice.org/portal/page/portal/ClearPath/News/Statistical%20Reports/Annual%20Reports/10AR.pdfhttp://city.milwaukee.gov/ImageLibrary/Groups/cityHRC/reports/2014AnnualReportV.2.5.pdfhttp://apps.pittsburghpa.gov/pghbop/2012_Annual_Report_v2.pdfhttp://apps.pittsburghpa.gov/pghbop/2012_Annual_Report_v2.pdfhttp://city.milwaukee.gov/ImageLibrary/Groups/cityHRC/reports/2014AnnualReportV.2.5.pdfhttps://portal.chicagopolice.org/portal/page/portal/ClearPath/News/Statistical%20Reports/Annual%20Reports/10AR.pdfhttps://portal.chicagopolice.org/portal/page/portal/ClearPath/News/Statistical%20Reports/Annual%20Reportshttp://www.usa.com/new-york-ny-population-and-races.htm


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26.6 times more likely than whites to be arrested for murder.The multiples for robbery, rape, and aggravated assault were9.8, 7.5, and 5.6, respectively. The Hispanic population wasso small (2.7 percent) that comparisons were not meaningful.

St. Louis, Missouri, keeps track of homicide suspects byrace (page 41 of report). In 2013, 96 were black, one was white,one was Hispanic, and one was Asian. Murder victims are nota cross section of the population. In 2013, 82.5 percent had acriminal record (page 40 of report).

A larger geographical territory, such as California, gives a broader picture of racial differences in arrest rates, and one inwhich racial disparities are not nearly so stark. California isone of the few states that treat whites, blacks, and Hispanicsseparately, so there can be no confusion about how many His- panics are being counted as whites. The NIBRS data, togetherwith academic studies of policing that nd little racial bias inarrests, suggest that arrest gures are probably realistic indicesof the different rates at which people of different races commitcrime (see Table 4).

Consistent with national data, arrest rates of blacks, Hispan-ics, and “others” have all declined relative to that of whites

over the past decade (seethe last figures in thetable: “Multiple of whiterate”). Still, in 2013,California blacks were5.35 times more likelythan whites to be arrestedfor violent crimes, and4.24 times more likely to be arrested for propertycrimes. The correspond-ing gures for Hispanicswere 1.42 and 1.14.

“Others,” who aremostly Asians, appearto be a model group. Vi-olent-crime arrest ratesare less than half thosefor whites, and propertycrime arrest rates are 60 percent lower.3

The “Total” figure

indicates the multipleof the white arrest ratefor the total population.Black and Hispanic ar-rest rates raise the mul-tiple while arrest rates for“Others” lower it.

While black and His- panic arrest rates havedeclined relative to whiterates, very high blackarrest rates are still therule for most crimes (seeTable 5, next page). In

2013, the black arrestrate multiple (comparedto whites) ranged from alow of 1.56 for “danger-ous drugs” offenses to a

high of 13.39 for robbery. Black arrest rate multiples rose for burglary, forgery, kidnaping, arson, and, especially, dangerousdrugs, for which the black multiple more than doubled since2002. Dangerous drugs are methamphetamine, phencyclidine,and barbiturates. The sharp increase, matched with a verysharp decline in arrests for “narcotics,” probably reects ashift in “War on Drugs” enforcement policy towards thesedrugs rather than marijuana.

California Hispanics, on the other hand, were less likely

than whites to be arrested for drug offenses, narcotics, andarson. At the other extreme, Hispanics were 2.50 times morelikely to be arrested for homicide; for forcible rape, the gure is2.25. Hispanics are now the single largest group in California.In 2014, there were 14.92 million whites and 14.99 millionHispanics in the state.

On average, Hispanics are younger than whites and blacks.This means there are relatively more Hispanics in the peak-crime ages of 18 to 29. Some analysts have argued that whenage distribution is taken into account, Hispanics are no morelikely than whites to commit violent crimes.4

It is not possible to test this theory with national arrest data

All Violent Crimes All Property Crimes

2002 2013 % chg. 2002 2013 % chg.

Number Number

White 40,309 30,415 -24.5% 47,728 36,672 -23.2%

Black 29,230 23,683 -19.0% 29,693 22,660 -23.7%

Hispanic 54,016 42,635 -21.1% 50,935 41,304 -18.9%

Other 8,504 6,380 -25.0% 9,786 6,359 -35.0%

Total 132,059 103,113 -21.9% 138,142 106,995 -22.5%

Percent of total Percent of total

White 30.5% 29.5% -3.4% 34.5% 34.3% -0.8%

Black 22.1% 23.0% 3.8% 21.5% 21.2% -1.5%

Hispanic 40.9% 41.3% 1.1% 36.9% 38.6% 4.7%

Other 6.4% 6.2% -3.9% 7.1% 5.9% -16.1%

Total 100.0% 100.0% 0.0% 100.0% 100.0% 0.0%

Arrest rate (per 100,000 persons) Arrest rate (per 100,000 persons)

White 256 204 -20.1% 303 246 -18.6%Black 1,392 1,093 -21.5% 1,414 1,046 -26.1%

Hispanic 453 290 -36.1% 428 281 -34.4%

Other 180 97 -46.1% 208 97 -53.3%

Total 383 269 -29.8% 401 279 -30.3%

Multiple of white rate Multiple of white rate

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 5.44 5.35 -1.7% 4.67 4.24 -10.0%

Hispanic 1.77 1.42 -20.0% 1.41 1.14 -24.0%

Other 0.71 0.48 -32.6% 0.69 0.39 -74.3%

Total 1.50 1.32 -12.1% 1.32 1.13 -16.8%Data sources: CA Dept. of Justice, “Crime in California,” 2002 and 2013, Table 31 (arrests);

American Community Survey 2013 (2013 population); CA Dept. of Finance, CA Current Pop.Survey Report: March 2002 Data.

Table 4. Felony arrests by offense and race in California, 2002 and 2013

http://www.slmpd.org/images/2013AnnualReport_D.pdfhttp://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-census-latinos-20150708-story.htmlhttp://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/his-panic/http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/his-panic/http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-census-latinos-20150708-story.htmlhttp://www.slmpd.org/images/2013AnnualReport_D.pdf


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Table 5. Multiples of white felony arrest rate in California, 2002 and 2013

Homicide 2002 2013 % change Car theft 2002 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 9.78 8.58 -12.3% Black 5.90 3.82 -35.2%

Hispanic 3.40 2.50 -26.5% Hispanic 1.98 1.50 -24.4%

Other 1.56 0.65 -58.1% Other 0.75 0.39 -47.9%

Total 2.44 1.95 -20.3% Total 1.60 1.25 -22.2%Forcible rape 2002 2013 % change Forgery 2002 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 7.58 6.36 -16.1% Black 5.03 5.40 7.5%


Other 0.90 0.56 -37.6% Other 0.70 0.57 -18.7%

Total 1.97 1.71 -13.2% Total 1.31 1.25 -5.2%

Robbery 2002 2013 % change Arson 2002 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 15.88 13.39 -15.7% Black 2.05 2.24 9.2%


Other 0.86 0.46 -46.8% Other 0.53 0.27 -48.5%

Total 2.48 1.98 -20.3% Total 0.93 0.85 -8.7%

Assault 2002 2013 % change Drug offenses 2002 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 4.44 4.32 -2.7% Black 4.47 2.32 -48.1%


Other 0.68 0.47 -30.0% Other 0.37 0.29 -21.3%

Total 1.39 1.22 -12.1% Total 1.20 0.94 -21.8%

Kidnapping 2002 2013 % change Narcotics 2002 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 6.73 6.95 3.2% Black 17.11 3.56 -79.2%


Other 0.97 0.60 -38.3% Other 0.49 0.22 -54.5%

Total 1.98 1.63 -17.7% Total 2.29 0.89 -61.1%

Burglary 2002 2013 % change Dangerous drugs 2002 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 4.40 4.66 5.9% Black 0.75 1.56 107.5%

Hispanic 1.40 1.11 -20.8% Hispanic 1.02 1.07 4.4%

Other 0.68 0.38 -44.1% Other 0.33 0.28 -17.1%

Total 1.30 1.14 -12.2% Total 0.90 0.93 3.5%

Theft 2002 2013 % change Driving offenses 2002 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 4.40 3.74 -15.0% Black 1.75 1.73 -1.0%


Other 0.66 0.39 -41.6% Other 0.56 0.47 -15.7%

Total 1.24 1.08 -13.1% Total 1.20 1.06 -11.6%

Data sources: CA Dept. of Justice, “Crime in California,” 2002 and 2013, Table 31 (arrests); AmericanCommunity Survey 2013 (2013 population); CA Dept. of Finance, CA Current Pop. Survey Report: March2002 Data (population).

Community Survey 2013 (2013 population); CA Dept. of Finance, CA Current Population Survey Report:March 2002 Data (2002 population).


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Table 6. Multiples of white felony arrest rate by race, ethnicity, and age in California, 2013

All violent offenses Kidnapping

White Hispanic Black Other White Hispanic Black Other

All ages 1.000 1.431 5.270 0.500 All ages 1.000 1.962 6.846 0.627

10 to 17 1.000 1.612 9.430 0.510 10 to 17 1.000 1.421 4.144 0.773

18 to 29 1.000 1.417 5.066 0.460 18 to 29 1.000 1.977 6.604 0.648

30 to 39 1.000 1.159 3.996 0.454 30 to 39 1.000 1.479 6.151 0.525

40 to 69 1.000 1.039 4.168 0.470 40 to 69 1.000 1.454 5.598 0.486

70+ 1.000 1.145 3.112 1.093 70+ 1.000 3.404 12.061 0.000

Homicide Weapons offenses


All ages 1.000 2.523 8.460 0.687 All ages 1.000 1.878 5.516 0.417

10 to 17 1.000 8.178 18.374 2.524* 10 to 17 1.000 2.242 4.747 0.567

18 to 29 1.000 2.685 10.089 0.700 18-29 1.000 1.796 5.698 0.432

30 to 39 1.000 1.871 5.525 0.523 30-39 1.000 1.157 4.149 0.310

40 to 69 1.000 1.207 5.171 0.557 40-69 1.000 0.986 3.783 0.270

70+ 1.000 0.425 1.508 0.486 70+ 1.000 0.400 4.966 0.458

Forcible rape Driving under the infuence


All ages 1.000 2.271 6.266 0.588 All ages 1.000 1.244 1.659 0.467

10 to 17 1.000 1.105 4.168 0.311 10 to 17 1.000 0.680 0.372 0.000

18 to 29 1.000 2.032 5.653 0.605 18-29 1.000 1.156 1.072 0.528

30 to 39 1.000 2.187 5.167 0.504 30-39 1.000 1.054 1.588 0.405

40 to 69 1.000 2.244 6.567 0.554 40-69 1.000 1.212 2.148 0.344

70+ 1.000 0.000 0.000 1.945 70+ 1.000 1.418 4.020 1.621

Robbery Property offenses


All ages 1.000 1.978 13.197 0.483 All ages 1.000 1.149 4.182 0.413

10 to 17 1.000 2.980 29.807 0.981 10 to 17 1.000 1.416 6.118 0.462

18 to 29 1.000 1.579 10.356 0.421 18 to 29 1.000 0.957 3.431 0.357

30 to 39 1.000 1.065 6.953 0.308 30 to 39 1.000 0.827 2.982 0.353

40 to 69 1.000 1.181 9.034 0.334 40 to 69 1.000 0.904 4.022 0.398

70+ 1.000 2.431 1.723 0.000 70+ 1.000 1.243 5.169 0.803

Assault Burglary


All ages 1.000 1.335 4.257 0.497 All ages 1.000 1.120 4.596 0.401

10 to 17 1.000 1.293 5.049 0.398 10 to 17 1.000 1.440 6.820 0.496

18 to 29 1.000 1.354 4.026 0.459 18 to 29 1.000 0.869 3.745 0.335

30 to 39 1.000 1.145 3.621 0.467 30 to 39 1.000 0.751 3.096 0.330

40 to 69 1.000 1.008 3.783 0.477 40 to 69 1.000 0.862 3.973 0.384

70+ 1.000 1.140 3.183 1.145 70+ 1.000 1.702 3.837 1.414

Motor vehicle theft Theft White Hispanic Black Other White Hispanic Black Other

All ages 1.000 1.486 3.762 0.409 All ages 1.000 1.077 3.683 0.405

10 to 17 1.000 1.923 4.987 0.447 10 to 17 1.000 1.359 6.196 0.451

18-29 1.000 1.347 2.949 0.355 18 to 29 1.000 0.937 2.884 0.371

30-39 1.000 0.930 2.836 0.355 30 to 39 1.000 0.850 2.684 0.347

40 to 60 1.000 0.940 4.027 0.363 40 to 69 1.000 0.912 4.069 0.386

70+ 1.000 0.851 3.015 1.945 70+ 1.000 0.972 7.322 0.417

Data sources: California Dept. of Justice, “Crime in California,” 2013, Table 33 ( arrests by offense, age, race, and ethnicity); California Dept.Finance, Demographic Research Unit, Report P-3, December 14, 2014 (population by age).

*Very low numbers, which may not be representative: 5 whites, 7 others.


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because not all jurisdictions distinguish between Hispanicsand whites. However, California distinguishes consistently between whites and Hispanics, and also includes arrest rates byage group. Table 6 on page 9, which is probably representativeof the entire country, deserves careful study.

Hispanics of every age group are more likely than whitesto be arrested for every type of violent crime. For the highest-crime age group of 18 to 29, this is particularly noticeablefor homicide (2.7 times the white rate), rape (2 times) andkidnapping (2 times).

Though the sample size is small, Hispanic teenagers (ages10 to 17) were 8.2 times more likely than whites of the sameage group to be arrested for homicide: In 2013, 74 Hispanicand ve white teenagers were arrested for this crime. (Thereare more than twice as many Hispanics as whites in this agerange, which brings down the multiple.) Gang violence is probably a cause.

Assaults are the most common violent crime, and accountedfor 80 percent of all arrests for violent crimes in Californiain 2013. Hispanics of every age group are arrested for assaultat higher rates than whites, for an overall multiple of 1.34.

Blacks, however, are arrested at sharply higher multiples

than both whites and Hispanics. Robbery is a perennial stand-out in this respect, with multiples as high as 29.8 in the 10 to 17age group. There was only one age group, for only one crime,for which blacks were arrested at a lower rate than whites:drunk driving in the 10 to 17 age range. Again, this is a crimefor which police have almost complete discretion when decid-ing to make an arrest, so there would be a high black/whitemultiple if ofcers were intent on targeting blacks unfairly.

Blacks are the main cause of urban crime. As Hispanics displace blacks in America’s largest cities and in its largeststate, crime rates should remain stable or decline becauseHispanics are displacing the group with the highest crime rates.

To return to Table 5, it is notable that the “Other” cat-egory of offenders—which is composed largely of Asians—

has the lowest arrestrates across the board.This is consistent notonly with earlier ver-sions of “The Colorof Crime” but withvirtually every studyconducted on Ameri-can crime rates. Asthe number of Asiansin a jurisdiction rises,crime rates can beexpected to fall.

IncarcerationThe criminal jus-tice system beginswith arrest, and con-tinues through incar-ceration and release.Federal and stateincarceration statis-tics are consistent,reliable, and distin-guish between whites, blacks, Hispanics, and

people of other races. They are therefore the best single nation-wide indicator of the racial distribution of criminal activity. Ofcourse, for incarceration rates to be a valid measure of crimerates, the criminal justice system must be free of systematic bias at every stage—from indictment to the decision to grant parole.

There have been many investigations of bias in the justicesystem, and a summary of the literature is beyond the scopeof this report. However, a typical 2009 academic study of the process up through sentencing concludes that:

[U]sing arrests as a marker of violent offending, theoverrepresentation of blacks among offenders admitted tostate prisons occurs because they commit a disproportion-ate number of frequently imprisoned (i.e., violent) crimes.

One simple test for bias is to see whether incarcerationrates by race generally correspond to arrest rates. Earlier, wenoted that if the racial distribution of arrests matches the racialdistribution of offenders identied by victims or witnesses, wecan conclude that there is little or no systematic police bias. Acomparison between arrest and incarceration rates should be asimilar test for justice system bias. Incarceration rates consis-

tently higher than arrest rates could suggest post-arrest bias,whereas incarceration consistently lower than arrest rates couldsuggest unjustied arrests that lead to release or acquittal.

Figure 7 compares the percentage of arrests of blacks (aver-age percentages from 2009 to 2013) to incarcerations of blacks.Total incarcerations are slightly higher than total arrests forsome crimes, but for others they are lower. We cannot ruleout justice system bias. However, the general concordance between arrest and incarceration rates suggests an absence ofserious or systematic racial bias. Statistics that fail to distin-guish between whites and Hispanics at the time of arrest meanit is not possible to make a similar comparison for Hispanics.

The decline in arrests noted above is beginning to be re-ected in incarceration gures. Department of Justice data

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show that the total incarcerated population peaked in 2008,and has since declined slightly (see Figure 8).

Between 1993 and 2013, the total incarcerated populationrose by about 878,000, or 61 percent, while the US populationrose by only 22 percent. Since the last “Color of Crime” (2002data), the total inmate count is up by 201,000, or 10 percent.The incarceration rate peaked at 788 per 100,000 US residentsin 2007 and declined to 730 by 2013. This is practically identi-cal to the rate of 732 for 2002.

Federal prisoner data are no longer available by offense andrace.5 However, our primary interest is in violent crime, which

is almost always handled in state courts. As shown in Table7, the state prison population sentenced for violent crimesincreased by about 18 percent since the last “Color of Crime” report. (There is an increase because this is a comparison with2001 gures; a comparison with 2009 gures would show adecrease.)

Hispanics and “others” were the fastest growing incarcer-ated categories: up 58 percent and 107 percent, respectively.Part of the rise in “others” reects a statistical reclassica -tion: Prisoners who identied themselves as being of “two ormore” races were counted as “others” in 2013. The multi-racecategory did not exist in 2001.

Blacks were the only group to see a reduction in incarcera-tion rates, but the reduction was small, and blacks remained

far more likely to be incarcerated for violent crimes than anyother group. The black violent-crime incarceration rate in 2013was 6.3 times that of the white rate. This does not necessarilymean that blacks are 6.3 times more likely to commit violentcrimes, because prison time depends on the severity of thecrime as well as prior record.

Table 8 on page 12 shows the change in incarceration ratemultiples from 2001 (the benchmark year for the last “Colorof Crime”) to 2013.

While blacks were incarcerated at rates well above whites(and other groups) in 2013, their relative incarceration rateshave come down for most offenses since 2001. In some cases

the black/white multiple has narrowed signi-cantly: a sharp 56.4 percent drop in the multiplefor drug offenses, 49.6 percent for manslaughter,80.4 percent for larceny, etc. Hispanic multiplesare generally down as well, though the multiplefor rape was up 40 percent.

Perhaps the biggest surprise is the surgingincarceration multiples for “Other,” a groupcomprised of Asians, American Indians, PacicIslanders, and persons of two or more races.This was probably caused by a change in pris-oner categorization. American Indians, whoseincarceration rates are second only to those of blacks, were treated as a separate category in2001. Including them in the “Other” categoryin 2013 undoubtedly pushed up the apparentrates for Asians.

Table 9 on page 13 shows that despite thehistoric decline in crime, the number of pris-oners incarcerated for murder has increased4 percent since 2001, and that Hispanics ac-counted for all of the increase. The number of

Hispanics incarcerated for murder rose by about40 percent, while the number of non-Hispanicsfell by 3.2 percent. Although the Hispanic

population grew signicantly faster than the non-Hispanic population from 2001 to 2013, its incarceration rate for

Table 7. Prisoners Under State JurisdictionSentenced for Violent Crimes, 2001 and 2013

2001 2013 % change

Number

White 208,100 223,900 7.6%

Black 267,800 282,100 5.3%

Hispanic 102,600 162,300 58.2%Other 17,600 36,500 107.4%

Total 596,100 704,800 18.2%

Percent of total

White 34.9% 31.8% -9.0%

Black 44.9% 40.0% -10.9%

Hispanic 17.2% 23.0% 33.9%

Other 3.0% 5.2% 72.6%

Total 100.0% 100.0% 0.0%

Incarceration rate (per 100,000 residents)

White 105 113 7.6%

Black 746 709 -5.0%

Hispanic 265 289 9.1%

Other 120 138 15.0%

Total 207 220 6.3%

a. Includes Asians, American Indians, Pacic Islanders, andfor 2012, persons of two or more races.

Data sources: Bureau of Statistics, “Prisoners in 2014,”Appendix Table 4 (2013); “Prisoners in 2002,” Table 15,

page 10 (2001).


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Table 8. Multiples of White Incarceration Rate in State Prisons, 2001 and 2013

All crimes 2001 2013 % change All property crimes 2001 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 7.14 5.27 -26.2% Black 5.00 3.45 -31.0%


Other (a) 0.97 1.36 40.2% Other (a) 0.85 1.21 42.4%

All violent crimes 2001 2013 % change Burglary 2001 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 7.10 6.26 -11.8% Black 4.97 4.11 -17.3%

Hispanic 2.52 2.55 1.2% Hispanic 1.65 1.38 -16.4%

Other (a) 1.14 1.22 7.0% Other (a) 0.91 1.37 50.5%

Murder 2001 2013 % change Larceny 2001 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 8.26 7.53 -8.8% Black 6.44 1.26 -80.4%


Other (a) 0.73 2.18 198.6% Other (a) 1.32 0.11 -91.7%

Manslaughter 2001 2013 % change Car theft 2001 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 5.52 2.78 -49.6% Black 5.36 2.54 -52.6%


Other (a) 1.71 4.72 176.0% Other (a) 0.39 1.07 174.4%

Rape/Sexual Assault 2001 2013 % change Fraud 2001 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 2.77 2.51 -9.4% Black 4.20 2.62 -37.6%


Other (a) 0.90 1.02 13.3% Other (a) 0.39 1.45 271.8%

Robbery 2001 2013 % changeOther PropertyCrimes 2001 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 14.74 13.10 -11.1% Black 4.17 2.27 -45.6%


Other (a) 1.54 1.53 -0.6% Other (a) 0.73 2.43 232.9%

Assault 2001 2013 % change Drug Offenses 2001 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 7.17 6.57 -8.4% Black 13.45 5.86 -56.4%


Other (a) 1.59 0.24 -84.9% Other (a) 0.49 2.24 357.1%

Other Violent Crimes 2001 2013 % chang. Public Order (b) 2001 2013 % change

White 1.00 1.00 0.0% White 1.00 1.00 0.0%

Black 4.72 5.78 22.2% Black 4.99 6.07 21.6%


Other (a) 1.15 NA NA Other (a) 0.52 0.77 48.1%

a. Includes Asians, American Indians, Pacic Islanders, and, in 2013, persons of two or more races. b. Includes weapons, drunk driving, morals, and other public order offenses.Data sources: Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Prisoners in 2002,” Table 15, page 10 (2001); “Prisoners in 2014,” Appendix

Table 4 (2013).


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murder fell less than half as much as the non-Hispanic rateover that period.

Interracial CrimeAs noted above, in 2009, the US Justice Department’s Na-

tional Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) stopped publishingdata on the races of criminals. Recently, however, gures fromthe 2013 NCVS were released in which blacks, whites, andHispanics were, for the rst time, treated separately.

From these data it can be calculated, rst, that a great dealof violent crime—40 to 60 percent—is committed within theraces. However, when violence crosses racial lines it does so

in a very unequal manner. In 2012 and 2013, blacks commit-ted an annual average of 560,600 crimes of violence againstwhites whereas whites committed only about 99,400 suchcrimes against blacks. This means blacks were the attackers in

84.9 percent of the violent crimes involving blacks and whites.Some observers argue that the overwhelming preponderance

of black-on-white over white-on-black violence suggests that blacks deliberately target whites for violence. Others arguethat since there are 4.7 times as many whites as blacks in the population, it is to be expected that black criminals are morelikely to encounter white victims than vice versa.

Both positions must be evaluated in light of several con-siderations. First, blacks who commit assault, robbery, andrape are likely to be members of the underclass, who live in

largely black neighborhoods. If they chose victims withoutregard to race they should be more likely to encounter other blacks rather than whites. Second, black/Hispanic interracialcrime ts the same lopsided pattern: Of the 256,074 violentcrimes involving those two groups, blacks were perpetrators82.5 percent of the time. Unlike the nearly ve-fold differencein numbers between blacks and whites, there are only about 30 percent more Hispanics than blacks. The high black-aggressorgure suggests that blacks may also deliberately target Hispan-ics—perhaps even more than they target whites.

The imbalance can be expressed differently: When whitescommit violence they target other whites 82.4 percent of thetime, blacks 3.6 percent of the time, and Hispanics 7.8 percentof the time. In other words, white violence is directed over-whelmingly at other whites. When blacks commit violenceonly a minority—40.9 percent—of their victims are black.Whites are 38.6 percent and Hispanics are 14.5 percent. His- panic assailants also attack their own group less often thanthey attack others. Their victims are: Hispanics—40.1 percent,whites—50.7 percent, and blacks—4.7 percent.

Finally, interracial crime can be expressed in terms of thegreater or lesser likelihood of a person of one race to commit

violence against a member of the other. In 2012/2013, theactual likelihood of attack was extremely low in all cases, but statistically, any given black person was 27 times morelikely to attack a white and six times more likely to attack aHispanic than vice versa. A Hispanic was eight times morelikely to attack a white than the reverse.

The Department of Justice keeps national records on mur-der . In 2013, it reported 5,621 single-offender, single-victimcases in which the race of the murderer was known. Like mostfederal statistics, there is no clear distinction between whitesand Hispanics, so the only meaningful racial categories are black and non-black. Blacks killed 2,698 people—48 percentof the total—and non-blacks killed 2,923 or 52 percent. Since blacks were just 13.3 percent of the population, it meant a

black was six times more likely than a non-black to commitmurder. Although most murders are within the same race, blacks were 13.6 times more likely to kill non-blacks thannon-blacks were to kill blacks.

Police Killings of BlacksThere has been considerable concern about police killings

of blacks, especially after Ofcer Darren Wilson shot MichaelBrown on Aug. 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri. Ofcer Wil-son is white and Brown was black and unarmed. Althoughan extensive investigation by the Department of Justicefound that Ofcer Wilson acted appropriately in response toBrown’s physical attacks and subsequent threats, the shooting provoked riots and gave impetus to the Black Lives Matter

movement, which claims that racist police ofcers routinelykill unarmed blacks.This claim has been difcult to verify, since there are no

national statistics on police shootings. Moreover, as notedabove, broad arrest statistics and academic studies do not sup- port the view that arrests are biased, so there is little reasonto think shootings would be biased. The Black Lives Mattermovement has not been driven by data but by the deaths ofspecic people such as Michael Brown, Eric Garner, TamirRice, Sandra Bland, and Freddie Gray.

Freddie Gray’s death, due to injuries after his arrest inBaltimore, also provoked riots and was taken up with great

Table 9. Prisoners sentenced for murder in state pris-ons, 2001 and 2013

2001 2013 % Change

Number

Hispanic 27,800 39,000 40.3%

non-Hispanic 131,400 127,200 -3.2%

Total 159,200 166,200 4.4%

Percent of total

Hispanic 17.5% 23.5% 34.4%

non-Hispanic 82.5% 76.5% -7.3%

Total 100.0% 100.0% 0.0%

per 100,000 residents

Hispanic 72 70 -2.8%

non-Hispanic 53 48 -9.0%

Total 55 52 -5.5%

Data source: Bureau of Justice Statistics, Prisoners in 2014, Ap-

pendix Table 4, (2013); Prisoners in 2002, Table 15, page 10. (2001)

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/420565/charleston-shooting-obama-race-crimehttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xlshttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xlshttp://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdfhttp://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/opa/press-releases/attachments/2015/03/04/doj_report_on_shooting_of_michael_brown_1.pdfhttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xlshttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_6_murder_race_and_sex_of_vicitm_by_race_and_sex_of_offender_2013.xlshttp://www.nationalreview.com/article/420565/charleston-shooting-obama-race-crime


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energy by Black Lives Matter. Three of the six ofcers chargedin Gray’s death were black—and they were charged withthe most serious crimes—but the incident is still cited as anexample of police racism.

In the absence of government data, the Washington Post investigated every reported case of a fatal shooting by the police during 2015. It found 990 cases, with the followingracial distribution of victims:

White: 50.0 percent (495 victims) Black: 26.1 percent (258) Hispanic: 17.4 percent (172) Asian: 1.4 percent (14) Other/Unknown: 5.2 percent (51)Given their proportions in the population, a black person

was 2.45 times more likely than a white person to be shot andkilled by police, a Hispanic was 1.24 times more likely, and anAsian was only one third as likely. It is reasonable to expect people of different races to nd themselves in potentiallylethal confrontations with the police in proportion to theirlikelihood to commit violent crime, with blacks most likelyand Asians least likely.

As noted in Table 4 above, in California—a large state

that keeps consistent statistics on race and ethnicity—blacksare arrested for violent crimes at 5.35 times the white rate,and Hispanics at 1.42 times the white rate. The low likeli-hood of Asians being killed by police is in keeping with lowAsian arrest rates for violent crime. The black and Hispanicmultiples for police shooting deaths are well within the arrestmultiples—the black multiple is less than half—and certainlydo not suggest undisciplined police violence.

Moreover, FBI data show that from 2005 to 2014, blacksaccounted for 40 percent of police killings. Since blacks wereapproximately 13 percent of the population, it meant theywere 4.46 times more likely than people of other races to killa police ofcer.

In its study, the Post found that men were 22.9 times more

likely than women to be shot and killed by ofcers. No onesuggests that law enforcement bias accounts for this huge mul-tiple, which is undoubtedly caused by differences in behavior between men and women. In the case of racial multiples, police bias cannot be ruled out, but it is reasonable to assume thatthe multiples are explained by race differences in behavior.

The Washington Post noted further that all but 93 of the990 people fatally shot by police were armed, usually witha rearm or knife. The unarmed victims had the followingracial distribution:

White: 34.4 percent (32 victims) Black: 40.8 percent (38) Hispanic: 19.4 percent (18) Asian: 0 percent (0)

Unknown: 5.4 percent (5)An unarmed black was therefore 5.6 times more likely thanan unarmed white to be shot by police, and a Hispanic was2.6 times more likely. The black multiple is certainly high,though not that much higher than the California violent-arrestmultiple of 5.35 noted above.

There is no obvious explanation for why unarmed blackswere shot and killed at a white multiple that was twice thatfor armed blacks. If police bias is the cause, there is no clearreason why it should be worse in the case of unarmed suspects.The sample size of 93 is small, so random events produce alarge effect.

It may be that race differences in how suspects behave whenthey are arrested explain at least part of the difference. Thereare no national data, but a ve-year study of non-felony arrestsin San Francisco found that blacks were 9.6 times more likelythan whites (including Hispanics) to be charged with resistingarrest, and whites were 8.6 times more likely than Asians to beso charged. In Chicago, from September 2014 to September2015, blacks accounted for 77 percent of arrests for obstruction of justice and resisting arrest (page 4 of report), meaning theywere 6.8 times more likely than non-blacks to be arrested onthese charges. If these ndings are typical, they help explainwhy the arrest of a black non-felony suspect—who wouldmore than likely be unarmed—could escalate into potentiallylethal violence.

The Post ’s analysis was intended to throw light on police bias but failed to indicate the races of the ofcers involvedin fatal shootings. This would be useful information. A 2015Department of Justice study (page 3) of police shootings inPhiladelphia found racial differences in “threat perceptionfailure,” that is, cases in which an ofcer shot an unarmedsuspect because the ofcer thought the suspect was armed.Black ofcers were nearly twice as likely as white ofcers

to shoot an unarmed black (11.4 percent of all shootings by black ofcers vs. 6.8 percent of all shootings by white ofcers).The percentage of such errors by Hispanic ofcers—16.7 percent—was even higher.

Black ofcers may be somewhat more prone to error ingeneral. About 12 percent of police ofcers in the UnitedStates are black. Between 2005 and 2015, 16.6 percent of the54 ofcers criminally charged for fatally shooting someonewhile on duty were black.

Homicide is a serious problem for black men. Since at least2002 and up to 2013 (the latest data available), murder wasthe leading cause of death for black men, ages 15 to 34. Theirmurderers are almost always other black men. According to aDepartment of Justice report, (page 13), from 1980 to 2008,

93 percent of black homicide victims were killed by blacks.By contrast, the 256 police judicial killings of blacks in2015 would be only 4.2 percent of the 6,095 blacks who were murdered in 2014 (the most recent year for which nationaldata are available). The 38 unarmed blacks killed by policeaccounted for just 0.6 percent. Police shootings of unarmed blacks is a very small problem compared to murder in the black community.

Immigrants and CrimeWhen Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the

Republican nomination on June 16, 2015, he said of Mexicanimmigrants: “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime.They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

This caused much controversy, not least because even pro-fessional criminologists have difculty quantifying immigrantcriminality. Prisons can easily determine the race and ethnicityof inmates but determining immigration status is harder be-cause it is generally based on self-reporting. Convicted felonsare not eager to admit they are not citizens because they could be deported after they are released. So-called sanctuary citiesforbid local police departments even from asking prisonersabout immigration status.

Despite the difculty in determining immigrant crime rates,Hispanics have higher crime rates than the majority white population, and many immigrants are Hispanic. Immigrants

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/us/six-baltimore-officers-indicted-in-death-of-freddie-gray.htmlhttps://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings/blob/master/fatal-police-shootings-data.csvhttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/table_47_leos_fk_race_and_sex_of_known_offender_2005-2014.xlshttp://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/African-Americans-cited-for-resisting-arrest-at-6229946.phphttp://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/African-Americans-cited-for-resisting-arrest-at-6229946.phphttp://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/African-Americans-cited-for-resisting-arrest-at-6229946.phphttp://www.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/IB-HM-0116.pdfhttp://www.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/IB-HM-0116.pdfhttp://www.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/IB-HM-0116.pdfhttp://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-w0753-pub.pdfhttp://www.wsj.com/articles/percentage-of-african-americans-in-u-s-police-departments-remains-flat-since-2007-1431628990http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/thousands-dead-few-prosecuted/http://www.cdc.gov/men/lcod/http://www.cdc.gov/men/lcod/2013/blackmales2013.pdfhttp://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdfhttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_1_murder_victims_by_race_ethnicity_and_sex_2014.xlshttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_1_murder_victims_by_race_ethnicity_and_sex_2014.xlshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/full-text-donald-trump-announces-a-presidential-bid/https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/06/16/full-text-donald-trump-announces-a-presidential-bid/https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_1_murder_victims_by_race_ethnicity_and_sex_2014.xlshttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_1_murder_victims_by_race_ethnicity_and_sex_2014.xlshttp://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdfhttp://www.cdc.gov/men/lcod/2013/blackmales2013.pdfhttp://www.cdc.gov/men/lcod/http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2015/04/11/thousands-dead-few-prosecuted/http://www.wsj.com/articles/percentage-of-african-americans-in-u-s-police-departments-remains-flat-since-2007-1431628990http://ric-zai-inc.com/Publications/cops-w0753-pub.pdfhttp://www.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/IB-HM-0116.pdfhttp://www.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/IB-HM-0116.pdfhttp://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/African-Americans-cited-for-resisting-arrest-at-6229946.phphttp://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/African-Americans-cited-for-resisting-arrest-at-6229946.phphttps://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/leoka/2014/tables/table_47_leos_fk_race_and_sex_of_known_offender_2005-2014.xlshttps://github.com/washingtonpost/data-police-shootings/blob/master/fatal-police-shootings-data.csvhttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/22/us/six-baltimore-officers-indicted-in-death-of-freddie-gray.html


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are people whom the United States chooses to admit to itsterritory. If the selection process were perfect, no criminalswould be admitted and the immigrant crime rate would bezero. For immigrants to have even low crime rates reects poorly on immigration policy.

Illegal immigrants are, by denition, not even selected, andthere are only partial data on illegal immigrants, the crimesthey commit, and where they are from. The Department ofJustice’s State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP)reimburses prisons and jails for the costs of holding illegalaliens. Prison systems must document the immigration statusof inmates to get SCAAP payments—sanctuary jurisdictionschoose to forego this subsidy.

In a 2011 report, “Criminal Alien Statistics,” the Govern-ment Accountability Ofce studied the 249,000 illegal aliensfor whom SCAAP funds were paid in 2009. It found thatthis group of aliens had been arrested a total of 1.7 milliontimes— an average of roughly seven arrests per illegal alieninmate—and had been charged with 2.9 million separate of-fenses, or roughly 12 offenses each.

All told, these criminal aliens accounted for the followingnumbers of arrests for the following crimes:

Homicides: 25,064Sex offenses: 69,929Assaults: 213,047

GAO found that about 66 percent of the SCAAP criminalillegal aliens in state prisons were born in Mexico and another17 percent were born in the Dominican Republic, Guatemala,Honduras, El Salvador, Cuba, or Jamaica. Local jail inmateswere even more heavily Mexican. Seventy percent were bornin Mexico, while another 13 percent were from other LatinAmerican countries. The operating costs (prison staff salaries,medical care, food, utilities) of incarcerating these criminalillegal aliens in state prison systems totaled $7 billion for s-cal years 2003 through 2009. This gure obviously does notinclude the costs of incarcerating illegal aliens in sanctuary

jurisdictions because those costs are unknown.

Race and Drug ArrestsIt is often claimed that blacks suffer unfairly from the

enforcement of drug laws, and it is true that longer sentencesfor possession of crack cocaine rather than powder fell moreheavily on blacks. As a 1997 report from the University ofChicago notes:

From 1965 through the early 1980s, blacks were approximately twice as likely as whites to be arrested fordrug-related offenses . . . . Following the federal gov-ernment’s initiation of the “War on Drugs,” black arrestrates skyrocketed, while white arrest rates increasedonly slightly. By the end of the 1980s, blacks were more

than ve times more likely than whites to be arrested fordrug-related offenses. . . . [T]hese differences reect thegovernment’s targeting and enforcement of specic typesof drug use and trafcking.6

Even setting aside the question of crack versus powdercocaine, it is often claimed that blacks suffer from police bias in drug arrests. It is common to allege that although blacksand whites use marijuana at roughly the same rate, blacks arenearly four times more likely than whites to be arrested for possession.

The assumption that whites and blacks take drugs at the

same rate is based on answers to survey questions. However,there is evidence that blacks are less likely than whites to reportillegal drug use. A number of studies have asked subjects aboutdrug use and then checked their answers against the results ofurine- or hair-analysis tests.

A 2005 study in the Journal of Urban Health, for example,found that blacks were ten times more likely than whites to lieabout cocaine use. Hispanics were ve times more likely to lie.There were similar differences in reported use of marijuana.The study concluded that “the results replicate and extend agrowing body of research suggesting that African Americansunderreport substance use on surveys.” Studies from 2003,2008, and as long ago as 1994 report similar ndings, thoughone from 2001 found ambiguous results.

There is other evidence that drug use is not the same acrossracial groups. The US Department of Health and Human Services keeps records of how many people of different raceswent to emergency rooms because of an acute reaction to il-legal drugs. In 2011, the most recent year for which data areavailable, blacks were 2.8 times more likely than whites toend up in the ER because of marijuana, and seven times morelikely because of cocaine. For all drugs, the multiple was 3.5.

There is no reason to think these gures reect anything otherthan different rates of illegal drug use.Ever since receiving home rule in 1975, Washington, D.C.,

has had a black mayor and most of its police chiefs have been black. In any given year, as many as two-thirds of its policeofcers are black. And yet, in 2010, a black district residentwas 8 times more likely than a white resident to be arrested formarijuana possession. It is hard to imagine this was because of police discrimination rather than differences in marijuana use.

Finally, it would be possible for blacks to be no more likelythan whites to use drugs but still be arrested more often forusing them, even by scrupulously race-neutral police. Thatis because blacks commit a larger number of other crimes. Ifsomeone is arrested for robbery, for example—and in Califor-

nia blacks were more than 13 times more likely than whitesto be arrested for robbery—the police search the suspect fordrugs. If they nd drugs they add a charge of possession inaddition to robbery. Higher rates of illegal activity expose blacks to more intense criminal processing.

In any case, since the last “Color of Crime,” the black/white incarceration multiple for drug offenses has declined by nearly 60 percent (see Table 8, page 12). This probablyreects the government’s response to prison overcrowding aswell as a reorientation of enforcement activity in the War onDrugs rather than a decline in police bias.

Crime and PunishmentHigh incarceration rates combined with declines in violent

crime suggest that incarceration reduces crime. Those whodisagree with this conclusion argue that if one criminal islocked up, another will simply take his place. However,criminals do not wait for a competitor to leave the business.Opportunities for violence and theft are virtually unlimited.

A second argument against mass incarceration is basedon the theory of diminishing returns. As incarceration ratesgo higher, police start scraping the bottom of the criminal barrel. The marginal prisoner becomes less and less dangerouscompared to those already behind bars.

In fact, the chances of a criminal being caught and sent to prison are very low. Even the JFA Institute, an anti-incarcera-

http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11187.pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/1147634https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdfhttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/us/marijuana-arrests-four-times-as-likely-for-blacks.html?_r=1http://link.springer.com/article/10.1093/jurban/jti065http://www.readabstracts.com/Sociology-and-social-work/Validity-of-self-report-of-illicit-drug-use-in-young-hypertensive-urban-African-American-males.html#bhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495080/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7960302/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11506259http://archive.samhsa.gov/data/2k13/DAWN2k11ED/DAWN2k11ED.pdfhttp://archive.samhsa.gov/data/2k13/DAWN2k11ED/DAWN2k11ED.pdfhttps://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdfhttps://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdfhttp://archive.samhsa.gov/data/2k13/DAWN2k11ED/DAWN2k11ED.pdfhttp://archive.samhsa.gov/data/2k13/DAWN2k11ED/DAWN2k11ED.pdfhttp://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11506259http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7960302/http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2495080/http://www.readabstracts.com/Sociology-and-social-work/Validity-of-self-report-of-illicit-drug-use-in-young-hypertensive-urban-African-American-males.html#bhttp://link.springer.com/article/10.1093/jurban/jti065http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/04/us/marijuana-arrests-four-times-as-likely-for-blacks.html?_r=1https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu-thewaronmarijuana-rel2.pdfhttp://www.jstor.org/stable/1147634http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11187.pdf


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tion advocacy group, estimates that in only 3 percent of violentor property crimes do offenders end up in prison. According tothe Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), in 2004 only 1.6 percent of burglars were in prison.

Recidivism rates are strong evidence that incarceration pre-vents crime. The BJS tracked 404,638 state prisoners releasedin 2005. Within one year, 43.4 percent had been rearrested.This percentage grew with every succeeding year, rising to76.7 percent at the end of ve years. At that point, the released prisoners had been arrested a total of 1,173,000 times, or anaverage of 2.9 times each. These gures do not include theestimated 12 to 15 crimes a felon commits every year whenhe is not imprisoned and that do not result in an arrest.7

Many people believe that prisons are lled with non-violentdrug offenders. It is true that half of federal prisoners areguilty of drug crimes— almost always trafcking —but theyaccount for only 13 percent of the nation’s prison population,with the rest in state prison. Casual drug use almost neverresults in a prison term. In 2013, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (page 15 of report), only 3.7 percent of state prisoners were convicted only of drug possession, and thiswas generally the result of a plea bargain to avoid charges of

trafcking. Most had long prior records. Only 12.2 percent ofstate prisoners were convicted even of trafcking. Fully 53.8 percent of state prisoners were guilty of violent crimes, and18.8 percent had committed property crimes.

America’s high incarceration rate is nothing to be proudof, but any signicant reduction in the inmate population islikely to release large numbers of unreformed criminals whowill prey on law-abiding people of all races.

A Ferguson Effect?The year 2015 ended on a worrying note. National gures

for all index crimes had not yet been compiled at the time thisreport was completed, but one crime had clearly reversed itsdecades-long downward trend: murder. In the most populous

American cities, murder increased at the following rates over2014: New York City: 5 percent

Los Angeles: 10 percent Chicago: 13 percent Houston: 23 percent Philadelphia: 12 percentIn Baltimore, murders were up a shocking 63 percent

and gun violence (including non-fatal shootings) was up 75 percent. Washington, D.C., saw an increase of 54 percent.In Milwaukee, murders were up 65 percent in 2015, and 91 percent of the victims were either black (83 percent) or His- panic (8 percent). Detroit bucked the trend and saw a declineof 1.3 percent.

There was some speculation that the overall rise was caused because of less active policing, or “de-policing.” Ofcers mayhave been unwilling to take risks in crime prevention for fearthat even a slight misstep could come under career-endingscrutiny. This was known as “the Ferguson effect.” The ofcerwho shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, was forcedout of his job because of media coverage and public protesteven though a Justice Department study later found that he hadacted properly. The rise of the Black Lives Matter movementand harsh anti-police rhetoric also put police under intensescrutiny, which may have led to less aggressive crime ghting.

Baltimore appears to have suffered from the Ferguson

effect. There was a sharp rise in gun violence in the months after the riots of April, 2015, during which the police did notarrest looters because they were told not to “engage” withrioters. The riots also led to the indictment in May of the sixofcers involved in the death of Freddie Gray. Baltimore policefelt betrayed by charges that some legal experts consideredunreasonable. A number of department veterans predicted thatdemoralized ofcers would take fewer risks and that therewould be a spike in crime. That is exactly what happened.

Whatever the cause, the extraordinary decline in crime ratessince the 1990s may have come to an end.

Endnotes

1. We present “Two or more races” as a separate victimgroup in 2013 because the NCVS breaks it out that way. Asnoted below, however, incarceration gures published by theBureau of Justice Statistics lump all non-Hispanic prisoners of“Two or more races” into the “Other, non-Hispanic” category.Had we done this in the above table, violent victimizationof “Other, non-Hispanics” would have risen by 190 percentsince 2002. In fact, there are undoubtedly people who identi-

ed themselves as white or black in 2002 who would chose“Two or more races” in 2013. To the extent that this is true,the decline in white and black victimization rates in the tableis overstated.

2. High crime rates among blacks are not limited to theUnited States. Statistics released by the Metropolitan Police inLondon, England, show that in 2009/10 blacks accounted for54 percent of arrests for street crimes, 59 percent for robbery,and 67 percent for gun crimes. Blacks accounted for just over12 percent of London’s population of 7.5 million.

Likewise, according to information that had to be soughtthrough a freedom-of-information request, in 2002, blackswere 8.1 percent of the population of Toronto, Canada, butaccounted for 27 percent of all charges for violent crimes.

3. “Other, non-Hispanic” victims of violent crime are alsofar less likely to report their victimizations to police: only12.8 percent of them did so in 2013, according to the NCVS.The average reporting rate for all victims that year was 44.3 percent.

4. For the best argued case for this view, see Ron Unz, “His- panic,” The American Conservative, March 2010.

5. The source for federal prison inmates cited in the earlier“Color of Crime,” the Compendium of Federal Justice Sta-tistics, is no longer published. Current federal inmate data areavailable, in database format, from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD). Ten years ago NACJD leswere available to the public; today access is restricted. In anyevent, the state prison population is about six times larger than

the federal prison population. It is not surprising, therefore, thatour 2013 incarceration rate multiples for blacks and Hispan-ics, which are based on state prison inmates alone, are veryclose to the multiples in the earlier report, which were basedon combined state and federal inmates.

6. Robert J. Sampson and Janet L. Lauritsen, “Racial andEthnic Disparities in Crime and Criminal Justice in the UnitedStates,”Crime and Justice, University of Chicago Press, 1997, page 327.

7. Paul G. Cassell, “Too Severe? A Defense of the FederalSentencing Guidelines,” Stanford Law Review, 56 (2004):1017-48.

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